A BIT OF BRIGHT RIBBON
When Laurie opened his eyes blackness was still around him, a blackness
without a point of light. But as his mind slowly cleared, the picture he
saw in his last conscious moment flashed across his mental vision--the
dim, firelit room, the struggling, straining figures of Shaw and the
blond secretary. He heard again the hissed caution, "Not too much of
that!"
He sat up, dizzily. There _had_ been "too much of that." He felt faint
and mildly nauseated. His hands, groping in the darkness, came in
contact with a brick floor; or was it the tiling around the fireplace?
He did not know. He decided to sit quite still for a moment, until he
could pull himself together.
His body felt stiff and sore. There must have been a dandy fight in that
dingy old room, he reflected with satisfaction. Perhaps the other two
men were lying somewhere near him in the darkness. Perhaps they, too,
were knocked out. He hoped they were. But no, of course not. Again he
remembered the hurried caution, "Not too much of that."
He decided to light a match and see where he was, and he fumbled in his
pockets with the first instinct of panic he had known. If those brutes
had taken his match-box! But they hadn't. He opened it carefully, still
with a lingering suggestion of the panic. If he had been a hero of
romance, he reasoned, with a dawning grin, that box would have held
exactly one match; and he would have had to light that one very slowly
and carefully. Then, at the last instant, the feeble flicker would have
gone out, leaving it up to him to invent some method of manufacturing
light.
As it was, however, his fat match-box was comfortably filled, and his
cigarette-case, which he eagerly opened and examined by touch, held
three, no, four cigarettes. That was luck! His spirits rose, singing.
Now for a light!
He lit a match, held it up, looked around him, and felt himself grow
suddenly limp with surprise. He had expected, of course, to find himself
in Shaw's room. Instead, he was in a cellar, which resembled that room
only in the interesting detail that it appeared to have no exit. With
this discovery, his match went out. He lit another, and examined his new
environment as carefully as he could in the brief interval of
illumination it afforded.
The cellar was a perfectly good one, as cellars go. It was a small,
square, hollow cube in the earth, not damp, not especially cold, and not
evil-smelling. Its walls were brick. So was its floor, which was covered
with clean straw, a discovery that made its present occupant suddenly
cautious in handling his matches. He had no wish to be burned alive in
this underground trap. The place was apparently used as a sort of
store-room. There was an old trunk in it, and some broken-down pieces of
furniture. The second match burned out.
Affluent though he was in matches, it was no part of the young man's
plan to burn his entire supply at one sitting, as it were. For half an
hour he crouched in the darkness, pondering. Then, as an answer to
certain persistent questions that came up in his mind, he lit a third
match. He greatly desired to know where lay the outlet to that cellar,
and in this third illumination he decided that he had found it. There
must be some sort of a trap-door at the top, through which he had been
dropped or lowered. Those wide seams in the whitewashed ceiling must
mean the cracks due to a set-in door. Undoubtedly that door had been
bolted. Also, even assuming that it was not fastened, the ceiling was
fully eight feet above him. There was no ladder, there were no stairs.
His third match burned out.
In the instant of its last flicker he saw something white lying on the
straw beside him. He promptly lit another match, and with rising
excitement picked up the sheet of paper and read the three-line
communication scrawled in pencil upon it:
Out to-morrow. Flash-light, candles, cigarettes, and matches in box
at your left. Blankets in corner. Be good.
The recipient of this interesting document read it twice. Then, having
secured the box at his left--a discarded collar box, judging by its
shape and labels--he drew forth the flash-light, the cigarettes, the
matches, and the candles it contained. Lighting one of the candles, he
stuck it securely on a projecting ledge of the wall. By its wan light,
aided by the electric flash, he took a full though still dazed inventory
of his surroundings. The ophidian Shaw had puzzled him again.
He had handled Shaw very roughly for a time. He could still feel--and he
recalled the sensation with great pleasure--the thick, slippery neck of
the creature, and the way it had squirmed when he got his fingers into
it. Yet the serpent evidently bore no malice. Or--a searing thought
struck Laurie--having things his own way, he could afford to be
generous. In other words, he was now perfecting his plans, while he,
Laurie, was out of the way.
The promise of release to-morrow could mean, of course, only one
thing--that those plans, whatever they were, would be carried out by
then. And yet--and yet-- The boy put his head between his hands and
groaned. What was happening to Doris? Surely nothing could happen that
night! Or could it? And what would it be? Only a fool would doubt Shaw's
power and venom after such an experience as Laurie had just had, and
yet--Even now the skeptical interrogation-point reared itself in the
young man's mind.
One fact alone was clear. He must get out of this. But how? Flash-light
in hand, he made the short tour of the cellar, examining and tapping
every inch of the wall, the masonry, and the floor-work. Could he pile
up the furniture and so reach the door in the ceiling? He could not. The
articles consisted of the small, battered trunk, a legless,
broken-springed cot, and a clock whose internal organs had been removed.
Piled one on the other, they would not have borne a child's weight.
Laurie decided that he was directly under Shaw's room. Perhaps the
creature was there now. Perhaps he would consent to a parley. But shouts
and whistles, and a rain of small objects thrown up against the
trap-door produced no response.
He began to experience the sensations of a trapped animal. So vivid were
these, and so overpowering, as he measured his helplessness against the
girl's possible need of him, that he used all his will power in
overcoming them. Resolutely he reminded himself that he must keep cool
and steady. He would leave nothing undone that could be done. He would
shout at intervals. Perhaps sooner or later some night-watchman would
hear him. He would reach that trap-door if the achievement were humanly
possible. But first, last, and all the time he would keep cool.
When he had exhausted every resource his imagination suggested, he sat
in the straw, smoking and brooding, his mind incessantly seeking some
way out of his plight. At intervals he shouted, pounded, and whistled.
He walked the floor, and reexamined it and the cellar walls. He looked
at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning. He was exhausted, and
his body still ached rackingly.
Very slowly he resigned himself to the inevitable. Morning would soon
come. He must sleep till then, to be in condition for the day. He found
Shaw's blankets, threw himself on the straw, and fell into a slumber
full of disturbing dreams. In the most vivid of these he was a little
boy, at school; and on the desk before him a coiled boa-constrictor,
with Shaw's wide and sharp-toothed grin, ordered him to copy on his
slate an excellent photograph of Doris.
He awoke with a start, and in the next instant was on his feet. He had
heard a sound, and now he saw a light falling from above. He looked up.
A generous square opening appeared in the ceiling, and leading down from
it was the gratifying vision of a small ladder. Up the ladder Laurie
sprang with the swiftness of light itself. Subconsciously he realized
that if he was to catch the person who had opened that door and dropped
that ladder, he must be exceedingly brisk about it. But quick as he was,
he was still too slow. With a grip on each side of the opening, and a
strong swing, he lifted himself into the room above. As he had expected,
it held no occupant. What he had not expected, and what held him staring
now, was that it held not one stick of furniture.
Bare as a bone, bleak as a skeleton, it had the effect of grinning at
him with Shaw's wide white grin.
His first conscious reflection was the natural one that it was not
Shaw's room. He had been carried to another building. This room had a
window, which, of course, might have been concealed behind the
letter-files. Yet, bare as it was, it looked familiar. There was the
fireplace, with its charred logs. There, yes, there were the splinters
of the glass that had protected Doris's photograph. And, final
convincing evidence, there, forgotten in a corner, was the worn bedroom
slipper he had noticed under the couch the night before.
With eyes still bewildered, still incredulous, he stared around the
empty room. Before him yawned an open door, showing an uninviting vista
of dingy hall. He stepped across its threshold, and looked down the
winding passage of the night before. But why hadn't he seen the door? He
moved back into the empty room. A glance explained the little mystery.
The room had been freshly papered, door and all. The surface of the door
had been made level with the wall. When it was closed there was no
apparent break in the pattern of the wall-paper.
If there had been a chair in the room, young Mr. Devon would have sat
down at this point. His body wanted to sit down. In fact, it almost
insisted upon doing so. But just as he was relaxing in utter
bewilderment, he received another gentle shock. Above the old-fashioned
mantel was a narrow, set-in mirror, and in this mirror Laurie caught a
glimpse of the features of a disheveled young ruffian, staring fixedly
at him. He had time to stiffen perceptibly over this vision before he
realized that the disheveled ruffian was himself, a coatless, collarless
self, with shirt torn open, cuffs torn off, hair on end, features
battered and dirty, and bits of straw clinging to what was left of his
clothing.
For a long moment Laurie gazed at the figure in the glass, and as he
gazed his mingled emotions shook down into connected thought. Yes, there
_had_ been a dandy fight in this room last night, and he had the
satisfaction of knowing that his two opponents must have come out of it
as disheveled as himself. He had "had them going." Beyond doubt he could
have handled them both but for their infernal chloroform. Again he
recalled, with pleasure, the feeling of Shaw's thick, slippery neck as
it choked and writhed under the grip of his fingers. Incidentally he had
landed two blows on the secretary's jaw, sending him first into a corner
and the next time to the floor. It was soon after the second blow that
the episode of the chloroform occurred.
Straightening up, he began the hurried and elemental toilet which was
all the conditions permitted. He removed the pieces of straw from his
clothing, smoothed his hair, straightened his garments to conceal as
much of the damage to them as possible, and gratefully put on his coat,
which lay neatly folded on the floor, with his silk hat resting smugly
upon it. It required some courage to go out into the clear light of a
January morning in patent-leather pumps and wearing a silk hat. He would
find some one around the place from whom he could borrow a hat and get
the information he needed about the late tenants of this extraordinary
office. He looked at his watch. It was half-past seven. He had slept
later than he had realized. He had slept while Doris was in peril. The
reminder both appalled and steadied him.
With a last look around the dismantled room, he closed its door behind
him and went out into the winding hall. He hurried up and down its
length, poking his head into empty store-rooms and dusty offices, but
finding no sign of life.
At last a cheerful whistle in the lower regions drew him down a flight
of stairs to what appeared to be an underground store-room. Here a
bulky, overalled individual, looming large in the semi-darkness, stopped
in his labor of pushing about some boxes, and regarded Laurie with
surprise.
"Are you the watchman?" asked the latter, briskly.
"I am, that."
"Were you here last night?"
"I was."
"Was any one else here?"
"Divil a wan."
"Did you hear any noise during the night?"
"Divil a bit."
"Were you asleep?"
"I was," admitted the watchman, simply. His voice was Hibernian, and
rich with tolerant good humor.
"I want to make a trade with you." The new-comer held out his silk hat.
"Will you give me your hat, or any old hat you've got around the place,
for this?"
"I will," said the watchman calmly. Though good-humored, he seemed a man
of few words. "And who might you be?" he added.
"I came in last night with Mr. Shaw, and I spent the night here. When I
woke up," added Laurie drily, "I found that my host had moved."
The watchman sadly shook his head.
"You're a young lad," he said, with friendly sympathy. "'Tis a pity
you've got into these habits."
Laurie grinned at him. He had discovered that his money, like his watch,
was safe in his pockets. Taking out a bill, he showed it to his
companion.
"Do you like the looks of that?" he inquired.
"I do," admitted the watchman, warmly.
"Tell me all you know about Shaw, and take it for your trouble."
"I will," promptly agreed the other, "but 'tis not much you'll get for
your money, for 'tis little enough I know. The man you're talkin' about,
I suppose, is the fat fella with eyes you could hang yer hat on, that
had the back room on the ground floor."
"That's the one."
"Then all I know is, he moved in three days ago, and he moved out two
hours ago. What he did between-times I don't know. But he paid for the
room for a month in advance, so nobody's mournin' his loss."
"Didn't he say why he was going, or where?"
"Divil a word did he say. He was in a hurry, that lad. He had a gang of
three men with him, and they had the place empty in ten minutes. I lent
'em a hand, an' he give me a dollar, and that's the last I saw of him."
A sudden thought struck the watchman. "Where was you all the time?" he
asked with interest.
"In the cellar."
The watchman nodded, understandingly.
"You're too young for that sort of thing, me boy. Now, I'm no teetotaler
meself," he went on argumentatively. "A glass once in a while is all
right, if a man knows whin to stop. But--"
"How about that hat?" interrupted the restive victim of this homily.
"Have you got one handy?"
"I have."
The watchman disappeared into a shadowy corner and returned with a
battered derby.
"An' a fine grand hat it is!" he earnestly assured the new owner, as he
handed it over.
Laurie took the hat and put it on his head, where, being too small for
him, it perched at a rakish angle. He dropped the bank-note into his own
silk hat, and handed them to his companion, who accepted them without
visible emotion. Evidently, brief though his stay in the building had
been, Herbert Ransome Shaw had accustomed its watchman to surprises.
Laurie's last glimpse of the man as he hurried away showed him, with
extreme efficiency and the swift simultaneous use of two well-trained
hands, putting the silk hat on his head and the bill in his pocket.
Laurie rushed through the early East Side streets. He was not often
abroad at this hour, and even in his anxiety it surprised him to
discover how many were abroad so early in the morning. The streets
seemed full of pretty girls, hastening to factories and offices, and of
briskly stepping men and women, representing types that also would
ordinarily catch the attention of the young playwright. But now he had
neither thought nor eyes for them.
His urgent needs were first the assurance that Doris was safe, and next
the privacy of his own rooms, a bath, and a change of clothing.
Obviously, he could not present himself to Doris in the sketchy ensemble
he presented now; or could he? He decided that he could, and must. To
remain in his present state of suspense a moment longer than he need do
was unthinkable.
In a surprisingly short time he was in the studio building, facing the
man Sam had called Henry, a yawning night elevator man who regarded him
and his questions with a pessimism partly due to the lack of sleep and
fatigue. These combined influences led him to make short work of getting
rid of this unkempt and unseasonable caller.
"No, sah," he said. "Miss Mayo don' receive no callers at dis yere hour.
No, sah, Sam don' come on tell eight o'clock. No, sah, I cain't take no
messages to no ladies what ain't out dey beds yit. I got to perteck dese
yere folks, I has," he ended austerely.
The caller peeled a bill from his ever-ready roll, and the face of the
building's guardian angel changed and softened.
"P'raps I could jes' knock on Miss Mayo's do'," he suggested after a
thought-filled interval.
"That's all I want," agreed Laurie. "Knock at her door and ask her if
Mr. Devon may call at nine and take her out to breakfast. Tell her he
has something very important to say to her."
"Yaas, sah."
The guardian was all humility. He accepted the bill, and almost
simultaneously the elevator rose out of sight. The interval before its
return was surprisingly short, but too long for the nerves of the
caller. Laurie, pacing the lower hall, filled it with apprehensions and
visions which drove the blood from his heart. He could have embraced
Henry when the latter appeared, wearing an expansively reassuring grin.
"Miss Mayo she say, 'Yaas,'" he briefly reported.
Under the force of the nervous reaction he experienced, Laurie actually
caught the man's arm.
"She's there?" he jerked out. "You're sure of it?"
"Yaas, sah." Henry spoke soothingly. By this time he had made a
diagnosis of the caller's condition which agreed with that of the
night-watchman Laurie had just interviewed.
"She say, 'Yaas,'" he repeated. "I done say what you tol' me, and she
say, 'Tell de genman, Yaas,' jes' like dat."
"All right." Laurie nodded and strode off. For the first time he was
breathing naturally and freely. She was there. She was safe. In a little
more than an hour he would see her. In the meantime his urgent needs
were a bath and a change of clothing. As soon as he was dressed he would
go back to the studio building and keep watch in the corridors until she
was ready. Then, after breakfast, he would personally conduct her to
the security of Louise Ordway's home. Louise need not see her, if she
did not feel up to it, but she would surely give her asylum after
hearing Laurie's experiences of the night.
That was his plan. It seemed a good one. He did not admit even to
himself that under the air of sang-froid he wore as a garment, every
instinct in him was crying out for the sound of Doris's voice. Also, as
he hurried along, he was conscious that a definite change was taking
place in his attitude toward Herbert Ransome Shaw. Slowly, reluctantly,
but fully, he had now accepted the fact that "Bertie" represented a
force that must be reckoned with.
He inserted the latch-key into the door of his apartment with an inward
prayer that Bangs would not be visible, and for a moment he hoped it had
been granted. But when he entered their common dressing-room he found
his chum there, in the last stages of his usual careful toilet. He
greeted Laurie without surprise or comment, in the detached, absent
manner he had assumed of late, and Laurie hurried into the bath-room and
turned on the hot water, glad of the excuse to escape even a
tete-a-tete.
That greeting of Bangs's added the final notes to the minor symphony
life was playing for him this morning. As he lay back in the hot water,
relaxing his stiff, bruised body, the thought came that possibly he and
Rodney were really approaching the final breaking-point. Bangs was not
ordinarily a patient chap. He was too impetuous and high-strung for
that. But he had been wonderfully patient with this friend of his heart.
If it were true that the friendship was dying under the strain put upon
it, and Laurie knew how possible this was, and how swift and intense
were Bangs's reactions, life henceforth, however full it might be, would
lack an element that had been singularly vital and comforting. He tried
to think of what future days would be without Bangs's exuberant
personality to fill them with work and color; but he could not picture
them; and as the effort merely added to the gloom that enveloped him, he
abandoned it and again gave himself up to thoughts of Doris.
As he hurried into his clothes a strong temptation came to him to tell
Bangs the whole story. Then Bangs would understand everything, and he,
Laurie, would have the benefit of Rodney's advice and help in untying
Doris's tangle.
Doris! Again she swam into the foreground of his consciousness with a
vividness that made his senses tingle. He was sitting on a low chair,
lacing his shoes, and his fingers shook as he finished the task. He
dressed with almost frantic haste, urged on by a fear that, despite his
efforts, was shaping itself into a mental panic. Then, hair-brushes in
hand, he faced his familiar mirror, and recoiled with an exclamation.
Doris was not there, but her window was, and hanging from its center
catch was something bright that caught his eye and instantaneous
recognition.
It was a small Roman scarf, with a narrow, vivid stripe.